Enhanced auroral activity, far side CME
Tuesday, 14 April 2015 15:44 UTC
The speed of the solar wind as well as the interplanetary magnetic field strength and solar wind plasma temperature started to increase early this morning which is likely associated with the expected arrival of a solar wind stream associated with a coronal hole on the Sun's southern hemisphere.
However, the solar wind speed is still slow right now with a speed of about 350 km/s meaning geomagnetic storming conditions should not be expected just yet. The strength of the interplanetary magnetic field is right now about 11nT and it's direction (Bz) is southward at -10nT meaning we will likely see enhanced auroral activity in the hours ahead up to a Kp-value of 4. This stands for active geomagnetic conditions with possible auroral displays visible on the horizon from northern Scotland, Norway, large parts of Sweden and Finland.
Far side coronal mass ejection
A large asymmetric full halo coronal mass ejection became visible early this morning in SOHO/LASCO imagery but it has been determined that it came from a far side event. No effects are expected from this event at Earth.
Image: A far side full halo CME can be seen on this image from SOHO.
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Current data suggests there is a slight possibility for aurora to appear at the following high latitude regions in the near future
Whitehorse, YT, Yellowknife, NTAnchorage, AK, Fairbanks, AK, Utqiagvik, AK
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Monday, 24 March 2025
Coronal hole faces Earth
The anticipated strong G3 geomagnetic storm watch never materialized as the coronal mass ejection that was supposed to arrive early yesterday didn't arrive until today just past midnight UTC. The impact was very lackluster with the Bt (total strength of the IMF) increasing to a moderate 15nT at best and the solar wind speed reaching just 420km/s. A far cry from the anticipated 700 to 800km/s. That once again goes to show how hard it is to forecast space weather events and any resulting geomagnetic conditions. We remain under the influence of the CME and high latitude sky watchers should remain alert for some nice aurora displays but middle latitude sky watchers will probably have to wait for the next opportunity.
13:55 UTC - Coronal hole
A transequatorial coronal hole is facing Earth. Enhanced solar wind could arrive in ~3 days
02:45 UTC - Geomagnetic activity
Active geomagnetic conditions (Kp4) Threshold Reached: 02:33 UTC
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